


Rose Tattoo

by sprosslee



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Fluff, M/M, Sound Engineering, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 08:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17138090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprosslee/pseuds/sprosslee
Summary: “‘You’re an idiot’, of course,” Ken says. “Because you can’t admit I’m the best cook and the best friend for getting you a job with Daddybek.”Cheeks hot, spoon in his hand, Yuri stares at Ken.Curse him.Curse him to fucking hell and back.***With the help of his best friend Kenjirou, chronically broke sound-engineer student Yuri gets the chance to work with the local bandKing JJto earn a bit of money. After one day, however, he wants to quit due to their incompetence -- but the talented (and hot) drummer Otabek Altin makes him stay.





	Rose Tattoo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oceanwhirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceanwhirl/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, babe <3 You're the only one who can make me write an AU and enjoy it!

„Stop lying to yourself, Yuri Plisetsky,“ says Ken and shovels another spoon of omurice into is mouth like the fucking glutton that he is. „Just admit you don’t quit that job because of the drummer.“

“It’s because it pays well, you moron.” Yuri doesn’t say anything about Ken’s eating habits. How could he? Ken made him dinner after his horrible first day at the studio and listened to him whine about _King JJ_ and their inability to play a single song without starting to argue. “Working with them’ll look good on my resume. Especially because they’re so difficult.”

There’s not enough ketchup on Yuri’s omelette, no matter what fancy shit Ken wrote on it. So Yuri ignores the look of reproach he’s given when he grabs the Heinz bottle. Fuck that Austrian shit, US ketchup for the win. 

“Yeah right. It’s not that you have a drummer fetish _at all_ ,” Ken says when he’s shook his head enough at Yuri’s culinary escapades. 

It might be the truth, but Yuri’d rather eat boiled potatoes for the next six months than to admit it, because Ken is simultaneously the best and the worst friend any chronically broke sound engineer student could wish for. He’s perfect for going to concerts and taking a run, and when they’re at the club Ken always makes sure to send the cute guys over to Yuri. 

But he’s also the one who knows most about Yuri’s embarrassing secrets. Like that he loves cats more than is healthy, that at twenty-three, he still sleeps with the old Cheburashka plush his grandma gave him as a present when he was a child, that he’s often homesick after all these years abroad, that he misses his grandpa, -- and that he has a kink about watching people play the drums. 

To sum up, Ken knows far too much about Yuri. 

“By the way, you’ve messed up my characters.”

Just to make clear that he doesn’t care about hurting Ken’s feelungs, Yuri smears the ketchup with his spoon. “Yeah? What did they say?”

“‘Idiot’, of course. Because you can’t admit I’m the best cook and the best friend for getting you a job with Daddybek.”

Cheeks hot, spoon in his hand, Yuri stares at Ken. 

Curse him. 

Curse him to fucking hell and back. 

Ken just bursts out laughing. “Sorry, friend, but you’re so predictable. And a terrible liar, by the way.” He reaches over the table to grab the apple juice and fills up two glasses for him and Yuri. “Even I have to admit that Altin guy is kinda hot. And he’s an excellent drummer.”

You just have to love Ken for trying to be supportive, Yuri thinks. Not that Ken is interested in men at all, he’s just nice. He even went to Pride with Yuri in the last three years, happily wearing his self-made ‘My roommate is gay and I love him anyway’ shirt, waving a rainbow flag and elegantly dodging all sexual advances by the locals at _Beatfag_ afterwards. And it was adorable when he played the dumb foreigner card when that bear hit on him. 

“It’s not that he’s going to go out with me anyway.” 

“Oh, are we finally admitting that we have the world’s biggest crush? And thanking me for getting you that job?”

“Fuck you, Ken.”

“You don’t mean that,” Ken chirps cheerfully. “I’m far too skinny for your tastes.”

Yuri doesn’t even try to deny it. Instead, he takes a sip of his juice and then shovels the hot mess on his plate into a pinkish pile. It’s almost the colour of Altin’s horrible faux leather jacket. 

Tomorrow he’ll have to go back to the studio and watch him play the drums. Hopefully he won’t do anything stupid. Like licking Altin’s perfect face. Fuck, his cheekbones are sharper than Ken’s kitchen knife. 

“I’m so fucked,” Yuri says, puts down his spoon and hides his face in his hands. “So fucking fucked.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but you’ve been fucked since February when I dragged you to that concert.”

Once again, Ken is right. It’s even worse because that night, Yuri didn’t want to come along at all. It was so goddamn cold that he’d shivered all the way to the concert venue downtown, and the only thing that kept him warm was muttering curses in Russian, German and English, and sometimes in a mix of both. Ken and his current girlfriend Renate were ignoring him most of the time, busy holding hands and stealing kisses from each other when they thought Yuri wasn’t looking. 

He was still smoking then, happy to have something to keep his hands occupied while they were walking. He was asking himself why on earth they weren’t taking the tram or a taxi, and then remembered they were broke again and couldn’t afford it. At least the town was tiny so everything was within walking distance. 

When they’d finally arrived at the club, he felt more like a deep-frozen fish finger than a person. He couldn’t even move his toes in his steel-capped combat boots any more. “I hate you,” he snarled at Ken, who was busy ignoring him to greet the bouncer with a hug.

“You won’t when you see the band.”

“ _See_? Don’t you mean ‘hear’? Yuri said, but Ken only laughed and got them something to drink for free, because apparently he was friends with everyone and their grandma. 

After that, Ken and Yuri hung out left of the speakers, leaning to the wall, clinging to their beer bottles, waiting for the band to start. Renate had vanished into the crowd with some friends from the German faculty. The sound technician was still busy setting everything up, which gave Ken time to read Yuri info about the band from his phone. 

“They’re from all over the world. The bassist’s family is from China, and she’s studying the violin at the _Kunstuni_. The guitarist is her fiancé.. Apparently he was a popstar in Canada or something like that before he moved here. And the drummer is from Kazakhstan. You’ll like him.”

Yuri took a sip of his beer. “You always say that.” 

“It’s worth the wait.”

It was so not worth the wait. Although the bassist was beautiful and the singer/guitarist kinda hot in a trashy way, Yuri detested the band from the first chord. The music was awfully predictable, the lyrics embarrassing as fuck, the shrill outfits eye-cancer-inducting -- especially the singer’s horrible combination of the tightest ripped jeans in existence and a pink wife beater. 

“Thanks, I hate it,” Yuri shouted over the beats of their first song, a poppy ballad about some lost love. Ken knew perfectly well what Yuri thought about pop punk and about bands who sold the soul of punk to screw out money of teenagers who thought they were oh so fucking edgy. And still he had dragged Yuri here. Moron. “Let’s go.”

Ken just smiled at him and pointed at the stage. 

And then Yuri spotted the drummer. 

How he could have overlooked Altin in his shock pink leather jacket was a mystery. Maybe it was because Leroy was jumping around the stage like a hyperactive hyena, and because Altin was tiny, even when _standing_ behind the drums. 

“Holy crap,” Yuri whispered. He had to mentally make sure he didn’t grab Ken’s biceps to steady himself. “Holy fucking crap.”

“You’re welcome, baby,” Ken mouthed and grinned so broadly Yuri had a perfect view on his horribly crooked teeth. He wanted to kiss Ken right there. Instead, he decided to buy him a beer afterwards. And everything else he wanted.

Because he got to see the beauty of a standing drummer again.

While hitting the snare and the cymbals in a propulsive rhythm, Otabek hit the bass drum with his right food. The whole process made him look as if he was taking somebody from behind, mouth half open, eyes hooded, chest bare. Yuri hadn’t seen a drummer playing like that since he’d seen _Die Ärzte_ at _Frequency Festival_ last summer. 

He liked this drummer now far better than the wrinkly geezer back then, maybe due to the fact that Altin was only wearing that ugly pink jacket and no shirt underneath, which gave Yuri a perfect look on his trained upper body. Dark vines and red roses ranked around a ram tattooed onto Atin’s chest that moved with his every breath. His six pack made Yuri’s mouth water. There was a happy trail that vanished into his leather pants. His sweaty face glittered in the stage lights, as did his numerous facial piercings; another ring sparkled on his right nipple.

“FUCK,” Yuri said. This time he steadied himself on Ken.

“Now is now, don’t look back,” the singer shouted. Not giving a shit about what the stupid lyrics actually meant, the crowd, mostly consisting of teenage girls and young women, started screaming. JJ grinned, turned around, gave Otabek a signal and Otabek played the most perfect drum solo Yuri’d ever had the joy to listen to in his short life. 

When Otabek was finished, he licked his lips, smiled at the crowd, and goddamn, Yuri almost creamed his pants right here. If he’d owned a picture dictionary and looked up the word _lewd_ , it would’ve shown a picture of Obatek in that exact moment. 

“Told you you’d love him!” Ken shouted into Yuri’s ear over the eardrum-ripping music, ignoring the fact that Yuri had a hard time standing and not crumpling to the floor into a boneless puddle. If he’d noticed Yuri’s half chub he generously decided to overlook it. It was pretty dark in the room anyways.

It didn’t keep him from grabbing Yuri’s hand when the band had finished their encore. “Let’s do this.”

“Whyyyyy,” Yuri whined, although this was a ritual every time they went to a concert -- waiting for the band to finish, running to the backstage area to collect some autographs, dropping some info about them both being sound engineer students. Sometimes they got a job out of it, he had to give Ken credit for that. Also, working with bands was far more interesting than helping out at Viktor and Yuuri’s restaurant at the weekends. 

With practiced skill, Ken used his insane people skills to lure out King JJ’s bassist, the beautiful Chinese woman. In no time he’d found out that her name was Isabella Yang and he’d convinced her that they’d attended the same high school. 

He always did shit like that, luring people into a false sense of security and finding out everything about them with his crooked smile and his sweet voice. Hell, even Yuri’d fallen for it those years ago, telling Ken half his tragic life story -- and his social security number -- over their first shared plate of Curry Rice at _Katsudon Piroshky_ while Viktor and Yuuri were watching from behind the counter, tears in their eyes that their secluded nephew had finally found a friend. 

Afterwards, when he’d come to his senses, Yuri had been sure that Ken was a con artist who wanted to steal his kidneys and sell them to the Chechen mafia. 

“We’ve really been to the same school?” Isabella looked as if she was only half convinced that she and Ken knew each other, but was obviously far too drunk on post-gig endorphins to admit she had no clue who he was. Happily she signed into Ken’s notebook while he was babbling her ears bloody about his studies. Behind her, the bassist and the singer shared a single beer in silence before leaving the room. Neither of them bestowed a single glance at him and Ken. 

The longer all of Ken’s con artistry took, the more Yuri was wishing for another cigarette. Conversations like these always exhausted him, especially when the people he was listening to were as extroverted as Ken and Isabella, who were by now sharing generic high school memories with each other - Skiing trip! Musical production! That crazy maths teacher! Cue jazz hands and shrill laughs. Yuri’s head started to hurt. He wanted to be at home, in his room, his hands in his pants, thinking of a certain drummer. 

“Well, I’ve got to go,” Isabella said after she and Ken run out of stories. “It was great catching up. And good to know that you’re a sound engineer. If we ever record another album, I’ll give you a call.”

Yuri honestly thought she’d never contact them again. If he’d been Isabella he wouldn’t have, not after being chattered on by a tiny Japanese guy with orange hair and his presumably mute Russian friend in Graz, Austria. 

But she’d called Ken some weeks after the concert. Ken, being both a good friend and enabler, had claimed he was too busy to take the job. “My friend Yuri could do it. He’s an even better sound engineer. A total nerd. You’ll like him.”

_Nerd, my ass._

“How could Altin ever fall for someone like me?” Yuri says, then finishes his plate of pink goo to let Ken think about an appropriate answer. 

Yuri knows what he looks like with his glasses, his messy long hair and the bags under his eyes because he always has the best ideas at 4am and the sleep cycle of a drugged bat. But a nerd? 

Hardcore nerds wear baggy jeans, T-Shirts with math puns and sneakers from KIK. They eat _Leberkäse_ and _Schnitzelsemmel_ all day. They have a pudgy belly, don’t do sports even if their life depended on it and can’t look a girl in the eye when speaking. 

Yuri, on the other hand, is nothing like that. He might be gay as fuck but the girls like him anyway. Viktor makes sure Yuri dresses decently at least three out of seven days a week, he doesn’t even drink, he does sports every day. When Ken pointed out a self-proclaimed health nut couldn’t possibly be smoking, he quit. His only vice are coffee and drummers. Fuck no, he’s no nerd.

Ken tilts his head and squints his eyes. “You’re not ugly. You have pretty facial features under that mop of hair. It’s just that you’re...”

“A nerd.”

“You really took that hard, didn’t you. Sorry you had to hear that conversation. I was pretty sure you were asleep.” Ken’s eyes are glittering. He’s so not sorry about what he said. 

“I’m no fucking nerd,” Yuri growls.

It makes Ken laugh, look adorably cute and even harder to be mad at. 

And still. 

That Japanese shit has it so easy with his exotic look and his cute accent that is totally fake -- Ken’s family came to the country three generations ago. Yuri’s accent, on the other hand, is real. It’s due to the fact that grandpa decided to leave Russia when Yuri was seven. Yuri’s never ever going to lose it, and it’s forever setting him apart from the trueborn Austrians. He’s the Russian tech kid, always dressed in black, scaring old ladies and their dachshunds with his deep voice when he speaks Russian on the tram.

He and Altin might have a lot of things to talk about being migrants in this country. If Yuri ever manages to open his mouth in his presence. Fuck, he needs to speak to Altin if he wants to win him over, and he needs to record that stupid album as fast as possible or his brain will melt with the sheer stupidity of the lyrics. 

“For a start, put your hair out of your face,” Ken says, reaches over the table and pats Yuri’s shoulder. “And get rid of the glasses. Your eyes are too pretty to hide.”

***

It’s only half past ten and Yuri already wants to rip his ears off. Or bang his head on the mixer. Or both, simultaneously. He really needs a break and three hectolitres of coffee. 

It’s day three of the recording session at the university studio. Things are not getting better. That Yuri put in his contacts again doesn’t help; he is so not used to feeling his fucking eyeballs and has the hardest time not to blink nonstop like a goddamn lunatic. 

„Goddammit, Bella,“ Leroy growls. „It’s a simple line. Ba-Ba-baba-ba. It’s not rocket science.“ To emphasise this, he conducts with his hands. Someone needs to tell him to start smoking pot; he looks like an overexcited chicken, always moving.

It drives Yuri mad when he’s not even directly speaking or interacting with him, just the knowledge that Leroy is there is enough that he remembers all the worst Russian swear words of his childhood. But who can blame Yuri? Someone who names his band after himself is a total moron. 

„I’m trying, asshole.“ With the others quiet, Yang plays the line again, perfectly this time. „It’s just that _you_ distract me. And just that you know, you _suck_ at playing the guitar. You’re always just a bit off.“ 

If Leroy is the jerk of the band, Yang is the cool one. All women playing the bass are total badasses, and she also gets bonus points for talking back to the _King_ and being an expert guitarist. The YouTube videos of her solos are the bomb. Yuri has no idea why she was degraded to bass, it’s a total waste of talent. 

It probably was Leroy’s idea. Why on earth is she engaged to that jerk?

“Babe, we discussed this,” Leroy sighs. 

Yeah, totally his idea.

Yang is having none of it. “You shouldn’t have kicked out Emil. He was a far better bassist than I am, and you’re a far better singer than guitarist.”

There was something Yuri found online about that. _King JJ_ is far to irrelevant yet to make the big news, but there is this one hardcore fan who tweets a lot about them. Yuri might have spent an hour or four reading their feed, but this person is obsessed by Leroy. Everybody else only gets mentioned in the footnotes. 

Like Altin.

Speaking of whom, Altin shifts uncomfortably behind the drums, pushing the long strands of his undercut back. He clears his throat.

“I don’t care. We suck like this, and you know it. We need to switch roles again.” Yang starts to sound impatient. 

“Can we try again?”, Altin comments, voice calm despite his tense shoulders. Judging from his crumpled eyebrows, he must have seen hundreds of these bickerings. 

Leroy crosses his arms. “I’m a pretty good guitarist,” he pouts.

“You’re the worst, Jean,” Bella says. “Thanks, Beks. Let’s do this.”

From behind the drums, Altin throws Yuri an unreadable look, and Yuri’s heart skips a beat. 

He still hasn’t managed to speak to Altin alone, not since he tried to share a ham sandwich with him at the ten o’clock break. The memory of Atin’s _No, I’m Muslim_ and his apologetic smile are still fresh. Yuri wanted the ground to open and swallow him whole, but Instead he mumbled an apology and ran off to the toilet to emergency call Ken, who had to reassure him shit like that happened and that it wasn’t a big deal. 

Since then, nothing. Only bad music, itchy eyes - stupid contacts! - and crotch-tightening drum playing. 

This time, the band manages to get through the first half of the song. Yuri will be able to put this part together with the second one because there’s a short stop in between. It’s better to do the recording in two parts, he thinks, they’re far too inexperienced to make this work in one take, and he can’t stand another interruption. But now, he needs something to eat. 

“Break time,” he announces.

“Thank God, I’m starving,” Leroy says and takes off his guitar to put it on the stand before him. 

Yang does the same with her blue Fender bass and stretches before she grabs her phone, making her tank top rise and show a good part of her flat stomach. “You guys want pizza again? Or something more fancy?”

“I want curry,” says Altin, half-smile on his lips. He turns to Yuri. “You okay with that?”

“Yeah. Yes,” Yuri murmurs. He tries not to look too happy, because he doesn’t trust himself not to cheer.

This is huge, isn’t it?

Altin doesn’t seem to be mad about the whole sandwich thing. Maybe it was a good idea to put that hair into a bun instead of just letting it flow over his shoulders. Yuri needs to thank Ken for his hairstyle advice later, maybe he could even bike to the Asian grocery store and get some knock-off Pocky for him. 

He stumbles out of the studio to join the others in the hall. It’s a Saturday, so only some hardcore study freaks sit in the common area with their laptops, notes and headphones. One or two raise their heads, but nobody seems to recognize the band. It’s not surprising, they almost look like normal people today in their worn-out t-shirts and their baggy sweatpants. 

Yuri drops at one of the empty tables and sighs. Rays of sun are falling through the high glass windows, making the dust particles in the air glitter. He’s exhausted. He wishes Ken was here to help him with recording, but Ken is at _Katsudon Piroshky_ today to help out in the kitchen. At least he promised to keep some leftovers behind for Yuri. 

Yuri wants a cigarette so badly it hurts. 

“So, curry.” Leroy flops down on a chair next to him to take out his phone, too close to Yuri. Yuri really wants Leroy to fuck off. That guy is more obnoxious than Viktor, and Viktor is pretty high up on Yuri’s list with his hugs and pats and general comments about Yuri’s well-being. At least he as a good excuse because he promised Grandpa on his deathbed to feed Yuri and take good care of him, as if Yuri was a feral cat that would starve without Viktor. 

Either Leroy is really bad at reading body language or he is a complete and utter idiot. “Thai, Indian, fusion?”

“Something that doesn’t burn thrice, please.” Yuri is used to Ken’s superhot curry but he’d rather not spend the next few hours on the toilet because of spice-induced diarrhea.

“Fusion it is.”

“Yay,” says Yang, in a tone that suggest everything else than ‘yay’. 

Altin makes a strange sound between grunting and snorting, but when Yuri looks up, he has the straightest face ever. 

Maybe he’s imagined things. 

Hunger sometimes does that. 

***

The food arrives thirty minutes later, is decent, and immediately induces food coma. It’s warm outside of the building, so Yuri announces another twenty minute break. Better to be well-rested than half-asleep later. 

Now, Yang and Leroy are sitting on a bench in the sun, looking at pictures on their phones, whispering. It’s sickly sweet, the epitome of young hetero love.

Squatting with his back to the wall of the building, Yuri observes them from the wall. His fingers are missing the familiar shape of a cigarette. He doesn’t know whether he feels sick because of that or because he’s jealous of Yang and Leroy.

The high bun he tried this morning is already half disintegrated. Long strands tickle him in the face no matter how often he tries to shove them back. Goddamn, he can’t seem to untangle the stupid hair tie, and his stupid eyes itch like hell. 

Yuri’s heart skips a beat when Altin cowers next to him, the smell of his aftershave caressing Yuri’s olfactory cells. Unlike most other people, Altin doesn’t seem to have any problems doing the slav squat. In fact, he looks like one of the real _gopniks_ populating the streets of St. Petersburg; only the pink leather jacket and the piercings don’t fit the picture. “Let me.” 

“What?” 

_The._

_Fuck._

“Do your hair.” Altin’s face is unreadable. He’s speaking Russian. “You seem to be... inexperienced.”

“Uh. Erm.”

“I have three little sisters. I could do your hair.” Is Altin winking? No, he must have something in his eye. Maybe he’s wearing contacts too, because supercool drummers don’t wink. His septum piercing looks as if he’d been born with it. “How about we try it? Turn around, Yuri.”

When Altin pronounces his name the correct way (long _Ю_ , Russian _р_ , _ий_ ) Yuri’s brain switches to autopilot. He nods slowly, once, twice. 

Without any further ado, Altin gets to work. He’s less gentle than Yuri feared -- he remembers Viktor trying to braid his hair when he was a kid, and how strange the goosebumps were Viktor’s soft fingers caused on his arms. 

It only takes a moment, and Yuri’s hair falls freely on his shoulders. It’s long, but the ends are so split he should definitely get a haircut. At least Yuri used Ken’s high-end conditioner so it’s reasonably soft. 

When Altin accidentally touches left Yuri’s earshell in the process, Yuri has to actively bite his lips so that he doesn’t whimper. It was ridiculous to think about avoiding goosebumps, he must look like a dead chicken by now. Thank fuck he’s wearing a long sleeve despite the warm weather. 

“You have nice hair,” Altin says and starts combing with his fingers. “Almost as long as my little sister. Hers is black tho.”

“Thanks.” All of Yuri’s senses are hyper-focused. He hears his heart hammer in his chest and Altin breathing behind him. Yuri smells his cheap deodorant failing and the chemical stench of the stupid pink jacket. He feels every fucking root on his scalp, tingling with sensation.

Altin parts his hair and starts braiding, tucking at his strands with gentle force, sending shivers through Yuri’s body. “I haven’t done this in a while.”

“Uh-hu,” Yuri gargles. 

After what seems like three million years, Altin is finished, and lets go. “Turn around, please.”

Yuri does what he’s told. Altin takes out his phone and switches on the camera app. The sound it makes when he takes the picture thunders in Yuri’s ears. 

“Do you like it?” Altin asks. 

Yuri stares at his image on the screen, his cheeks treacherously hot. “Uh-hu.” He didn’t know he had such a weird facial shape. His eyes look huge with all the hair gone, and very green. It’s almost comical. “What does it look like from behind?”

“Perfect, of course. I went for a fishbone braid, but I’m a bit out of practice.” Altin gets up. Yuri hears the _click_ of the camera again. “Look.”

Fuck, it’s beautiful. It looks like the hair style his mom always wore in those old pictures grandpa never knew Yuri kept under his bed. Yuri swallows. Twice. “Thank you,” he croaks.

“I could send it to you. Can I have your number?”

***

“I’m so, so fucked,” Yuri whines. He puts his spoon down and throws a desperate look at Ken. His best friend is behind the bar, mixing White Russians and Moscow Mules for a pack of thirsty patrons.

_Katsudon Piroshky_ is crammed full of hipsters of all shapes and ages this evening. J-Pop is blaring from the speakers, barely audible over the happy chatter of the guests. Yuuri is in the kitchen with Mari, bandana around his head, whipping up dish after dish, never failing to smile at any customer who is stupid enough to try to get a table without a reservation. Georgi is taking orders, makeup on fleek, rainbow bracelet sparkling in the lights of the Swarovski chandelier. Viktor is nowhere to be seen, he’s probably crunching numbers in the tiny back office. 

Yuri is more than happy everyone is so busy. That way he doesn’t have to explain to anyone why his hair is still in a very girly, but very pretty fishbone braid. 

Between two orders of cocktails, Ken puts a glass of ramune in front of Yuri. “You’re repeating yourself. Stop it and finish your borscht, I chopped tons of beets for that and I don’t want it to go to waste.” His fingers are still pink. 

“But…” 

“Yuri Plisetsky. You should be happy, you’re working with Otabek fucking Altin!”

“Fuck, I know.” Yuri can’t help himself, he feels the corners of his mouth move north. “It’s a fucking miracle.”

Georgi slips on the bar stool next to him, patting his shoulders. “Yura, if you have any kind of love trouble, I’m more than happy to help.” Even after six years in this country, he still has the worst Moscovian accent when he speaks German. The patrons love his rolled Rs which speak of the Siberian tundra, minus thirty degrees, and homemade vodka. 

Yuri thinks it’s utterly ridiculous. Although none of their family is rich, Georgi has never been poor one day in his life - every time he fucked up, Viktor was right there to take care of it. There’s no need to pretend being a humble country boy when Georgi went to Moscow State University to study German before he left Russia. “Thanks, Gosha, but no thanks.”

“I’m deeply offended.” Georgi brings his right hand to his forehead like one of his favourite fat opera singers. 

“Shouldn’t you be working?” Ken remarks, sending Georgi running. “Eat your soup, Yuri. You need your energy for tomorrow.” He turns away when another bearded guy in his twenties orders a drink. 

Ken is right, as he so often is. While eating, Yuri realizes how hungry he actually is. He wolfs down his soup in record time and drowns his ramune glass before he pops into the kitchen to say bye to Yuuri and Mari. 

The night is pleasantly warm. It would be nicer with a cigarette between Yuri’s fingers, but breaking his vow of abstinence is not an option. Instead, Yuri digs around in his coat pocket until he finds a fossilized piece of chewing gum and stuffs it into his mouth. 

He’s pretty sure that he didn’t do anything right after Altin braided his hair. He could only think about Altin’s calloused fingers, about the rose tattoo poking out from his cleavage and the fucking pink jacket. 

About how nice Altin was, even when Yuri was too mesmerized to hold a decent conversation during lunch, and when he made stupid mistake after stupid mistake back at the studio. 

Altin must think he’s a total idiot. 

With a groan, Yuri puts his hands in his coat pockets and speeds up. He needs to get home and undo his hair ASAP.

***

How good can a recording session be after approximately five minutes of sleep? Yuri stares at the mixing console until the buttons and switches start dancing. He’s so tired he wants to curl into a ball on the carpet and sleep three days straight. Stupid Altin with his stupid perfect face. 

He shouldn’t have been watching YouTube videos of _King JJ_ till two AM.

With a groan, Yuri rubs his sleep-crusty eyes. He also blames the the fact that Ken came home at three, adorably tipsy and even more chatty than usual. When he started banging pans in the kitchen and making tamagoyaki with ten eggs while singing _Genghis Khan_ it became impossible to sleep anyway. Yuri needs to invest into a good pair of ear plugs very soon. Or some sleeping pills for Ken. Or a good old sledgehammer to knock out that hyperactive squirrel at such an ungodly hour. 

“Hey, tech boy!” 

Yuri whips around to send a smouldering glare into Leroy’s direction. “It’s _Yuri_.” He makes sure to pronounce it the correct way for that Canadian dick, which makes Yang chuckle. Yay, at least the lady think Yuri’s cute.. 

“Could you focus please? We want to get that done soon,” Leroy says, arrogant grin on his lips.

“Tell me about it,” Yuri mumbles. It’s the last song of this session, and every time they try to record the drums together with the singing, somebody fucks up. Sometimes it’s Yang being too slow. Sometimes Altin accidentally breaks one of the drumsticks during his solo. Sometimes Leroy is off key. 

Well, mostly it’s Leroy’s fault.

“Don’t blame Yuri. If we weren’t that shitty and you’d be on key we would already be done,” Altin says dryly. 

Yang starts laughing until she snorts. It’s a glorious sight to see a woman so beautiful be in hysterics. The best part, however, is Leroy’s face of utter disbelief. Yuri makes sure to look busy until the laughter dies down. 

Also, he needs to hide the smug grin on his face.

Altin defended him. Fuck, that guy _defended_ him against his bandmate. What a glorious time to be alive.

“Okay,” Leroy says, deliberately calm. “I guess you’re right, I might be a bit off track. What do you think about recording the drums first and the rest afterwards?” 

It takes Yuri a while to understand that Leroy is talking to him, and when he does, he makes a sound of approval. 

The next thing he knows is that Yang and Leroy are gone and he’s alone. 

With. 

Otabek. 

Fucking. 

Altin.

Okay, there’s a wall of glass between them and Altin is down in the auditorium, standing behind his drums, looking handsome and composed, while Yuri is up in the recording room, palms sweaty and freaking out, but that counts as _alone_ , right?

With an elegant flick of his wrist, Altin flips his stick. He straightens the cord of his headphones around his finger, waiting. 

“Oh. Yeah. Right. From bar…,” Yuri leafs through the sheets for the song. “Bar 28. Just four bars where your solo starts. I’m going to give you a click track.” He pushes the right buttons to switch to 128 BPM and plays one of the almost right recordings from Leroy’s singing. 

Altin starts bobbing to the beat immediately, eyes closed, fingers fidgeting around his drumsticks. He hits the base drum, counts four bars, then plays a solo to the song that gives Yuri both the worst goosebumps and the most embarrassing dry mouth of his life. Fuck, that guy can play. 

Yuri almost forgets to hit the right buttons when Altin is finished and opens his eyes again to fixate him with his dark eyes. His cheeks look flushed. A single drop of sweat carves its way across his naked chest, across the rose tattoo. Yuri wants to jump up from his chair and lick it up, then lick a bit more and--

“How was it?” Altin says and pushes the long strands of his undercut back. 

_Think before you speak_. “Ahem, yes. The solo. I think.” he says.

For a whole second, there’s only a static hum filling the silence in the studio. It’s loud enough that it allows Yuri to contemplate each of his life choices, including being procreated all those years ago in the smallest shithole in Domodedovo.

Altin smirks. “Thanks, I guess?”

“You… you’re welcome.” Why can’t earth just swallow him whole or a comet strike this building, leaving only smouldering ashes, erasing all his embarrassment? What in the ever flying fuck makes him a stuttering mess when he’s around that man?

In his past relationships, his former boyfriends always said he was too cold. When they left, he didn’t care at all. Yes, he felt a bit more empty than usual, especially when that overdramatic Italian dumped him. However, there was always Ken he could crawl back to and Grindr in case he needed someone to warm his bed.

But Yuri wants Altin to like him, like, really really like him. And not just because he’s hot.

Oh crap.

“Are you okay?” Altin is suddenly very close to Yuri, too close, so close that Yuri has the scent of Altin in his nose. Again. 

How Altin managed to cross the distance between the drumset and the console is an unsolvable riddle to Yuri. “Ah. Sure. Just tired.” Fuck, can’t he produce a single coherent sentence today? He sounds like a total imbecile. 

For some strange reason, Altin doesn’t seem to care, just tilts his head. He almost looks amused. “Phew, I’m glad. Because I just wanted to ask you where to get some decent borscht.”

There’s nothing left to do than blankly stare. “What? Why?”

“Aren’t you Russian? Don’t you like borscht? And doesn’t your family own a restaurant?” Altin says, as if this explained everything, and in a parallel universe it does. 

For someone so quiet, he suddenly speaks an awful lot, Yuri thinks. Maybe he’s dreaming. Yeah, that must be it, because someone so flaming hot conversing with Yuri about beet soup is totally and utterly ridiculous. “They serve the best borscht in town.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but _my mom_ makes the best borscht in town.” 

Okay, maybe this isn’t a dream. Maybe Altin has a smug grin on his face. Maybe he’s making fun of Yuri. “Sorry to break it to _you_ , but that’s total bullcrap,” Yuri snaps. “My uncle’s soup is delicious. You have to try it. I fucking insist.”

it’s deathly quiet in the studio. 

Yuri gulps.

Yuri stares. 

Yuri gulps again.

“Guess that means we’re going on a date,” Altin eventually says. This time he grins full force. 

 

***

Ken leans over the bar, brows crinkled, gin bottle in hand. “Don’t tell me you’re freaking out.”

Today, the restaurant is packed with a group of ancient German language professors. They’re awfully loud for a Thursday evening, drinking craft beers by the hectolitre and eating Piroshky faster than Yuuri and Mari can make them. When one of the more bearded ones starts singing ‘Sah ein Knab ein Röslein steh’n’ with a booming voice, Georgi walks over to him and whispers something inaudible into his ear to shut him up. Normally Yuri would find the professor’s flushed face totally hilarious, but today he’s just… 

Fuck. 

“I’m freaking out,” he says, trying his best not to throw up his hands like the depressed main character of a random Tolstoy novel. He’s Yuri Nikolaevich Plisetsky, goddamn. He doesn’t freak out over something as profane as a date. He’s cool, right? A cool nerd, totally in control of the situation.

Well, Yuri was, until his lazy brain realized that the man of his dreams was not joking and that they would meet in approximately five minutes.

“Fuck.”

Ken shakes his head and snorts, sending his bleached strands flying. “I guessed you’d be happy. Wasn’t this what you wanted?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know!” Okay, now he _is_ shaking his hands like the desperate Russian grandma he is. 

Fortunately, Ken is having none of it. “Okay, let’s go through this. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“He could not like me.“ 

“How could he not like you? You are a Slavic dream come true! Especially with these glasses,” Ken pipes. “You’re so cute.”

“ _You_ told me to wear contacts,” Yuri growls. “You’re the reason I almost got pinkeye.”

“Come on, you know I love shitting with you.”

Over the brim of his glasses, Yuri glares at Ken, who just mixes him a non-alcoholic cocktail and puts it in front of him. It has a maraschino cherry and a cocktail umbrella, and it’s made with grenadine syrup, which Yuri loves. He chugs it.

“How was it?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Okay, my ass,” says Ken, not even a bit annoyed. 

“Fuck, he’ll be here any minute!” Yuri whines. He feels the strong urge to run to the bathroom and check his hair and/or brush his teeth. Was it the right choice to wear Viktor’s leather jacket and combat boots? Won’t Yuri look as if he’s trying too hard to be cool? He sends a desperate glance into Ken’s direction. “What should I do?”

“You know,” Ken says, ignoring Yuri’s plea, “I always thought you’d end up with a yodelling guy in lederhosen, but if it’s gonna be a gloomy, slav-squatting Russian--”

“Altin’s from Kazakhstan, you ass!” 

“Whatever.” Ken shrugs, obviously unbothered by the fact that he elegantly managed to be racist twice in one sentence. “If that Altin guy is the one, so be it. Be happy, Yuri, you deserve it. Oh, there he is!”

Yuri’s heart skips a beat when he catches sight of his date. 

Of course Altin’s wearing the pink leather jacket again, but this time he paired it with a low cut tank top that gives a perfect view on the rose tattoo. His ripped black jeans are tighter than anything Yuri knew humans could fit into. And he’s wearing combat boots. He looks so incredibly hot Yuri wants to die right here on the spot. 

He’s so fucked. 

“Guess we had the same idea,” Altin says and shamelessly slides onto the bar chair next to Yuri. “Nice jacket.”

“Nice jacket,” Ken mouths behind Altin’s back. 

Yuri throws some imaginary daggers at him. “Kwass?” he asks Altin, knowing that Ken has to get the drink from the barrel in the kitchen. He doesn’t need a fucking spectator on his date, not until he’s found his rough charm back. “Because. I. Could. Totally. Have. Some.”

Altin nods and makes himself comfortable -- as comfortable as someone his size can be on a chair that’s simply too tall. Yuri stares Ken down until Ken turns around and enters the kitchen.

“Do you know him?” Altin asks, getting out of his jacket.

“He’s my roomma- my best friend.” Thank fuck Ken is not here to hear that, he’d make fun of Yuri three weeks straight. 

“He’s cute.”

Damn. “No no no, it’s not like that. He’s… not into me at all. He likes girls,” Yuri says quickly.

Altin smiles a half-smile, resting his chin on his hand. The cleavage of his shirt is so deep Yuri can basically see his happy trail. “What a shame. You’d make a cute couple.” 

“That’s a fucking weird thing to say on a first date, Altin,” Yuri snaps.

“I like that you’re calling this a date despite calling me by my surname,” Altin says. “I’m Otabek, by the way. Oh, here’s our drinks.”

Yuri snatches his glass from the bar and makes sure that Ken keeps an appropriate distance so that he can’t eavesdrop. Then he watches… Otabek - even thinking it makes him all warm and fuzzy inside - take a sip, swallow and sigh. Otabek is not going to leave. He’s really here. “It’s good, right?”

“Perfect. And now I want that so-called best borscht in town.”

***

It takes two cold glasses of kwass and a bowl of Yuuri’s soup to make Yuri ease up at least a bit, but the longer he sits at the bar with Otabek, the better it gets. When he’s not behind his drum set, Otabek is surprisingly easy to talk to, and apparently a very sneaky bastard.

“I don’t fucking believe this,” Yuri says. “You and Leroy worked together so that you could ask me out?” It’s hilarious. And sweet. And totally ridiculous. 

With a piece of rye bread, Otabek soaks up the last bits of his borscht. “He noticed you had a crush on me. So I asked him to play the asshole.” He pops the bread into his mouth and chews. 

“Couldn’t have been that hard.” Yuri dips his spoon into the soup again, fishing out a piece of tender beef. His crush must have been rather obvious if even that idiot got wind of it. 

“JJ’s my best friend, you know. He can be quite annoying at times, but he always has my back. And he grows on people when they get to know him.”

“If you say so,” Yuri says, not believing a word. 

He also doesn’t believe the fact that he’s walking down the street with Otabek only minutes later, Otabek’s arm around his, their bodies deliciously close together. He glances at their image in the shop windows and decides they look pretty great, as if they belonged together. Blond and black, tall and short, both radiating happiness. 

Without discussing where to go, they silently end up walking through the town park. It’s chill and a bit scary but Yuri presses himself closer to Otabek and implores his heart to beat a little quieter. It’s good that Otabek seems to have a goal, because Yuri has a hard time focusing.

“You have very pretty eyes,” Otabek says when he’s eventually reached his destination, a bench in the prettiest part of the park right next to the duck pond. He sits down and looks at Yuri, face unreadable, a small smile on his lips. “The eyes of a soldier. I’ve noticed the day we met.”

Yuri just stares at him. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

Time seems to stand still while Yuri wants to kick himself in the butt for that stupid comment. 

But Otabek doesn’t jump up and leave, he just pats the spot right next to him. “Honestly, I have no idea what this means.”

“You have no idea,” Yuri echoes before he can stop his hole from babbling bullshit again. What is it with this guy? 

“I really don’t. But I really really want to kiss you. Could you please sit down?”

Maybe Yuri nods too eagerly, and maybe he flops onto the bench to quickly, but honestly, he doesn’t give a shit at this point. What could possibly happen?

Otabek’s fingertips on his face are calloused, his lips soft and plump and perfect. Yuri wants to play it cool, but again, his body betrays him. He wraps his arms around Otabek while simultaneously moaning into Otabek’s mouth. Otabek embraces him and drags him closer, until Yuri almost sits on him. It won’t take long and they’re both going to burst their jeans. 

Then Yuri notices Otabek’s tongue tastes of beets. 

He snorts, then chuckles against Otabek’s lips and rubs his face against Otabek’s stubbly cheeks.

“Am I such a bad kisser?” Otabek asks, still holding him, looking mildly concerned. 

“No. Noooo. You just… you taste like borscht.” Oh crap. What is wrong with him? Why can’t he just be quiet and perfectly kissable and not stupid? It’s this man. It’s totally Otabek. Every second Yuri spends with him, his brain turns more into sickly sweet goo. 

Otabek starts smiling as well. “Borscht. Sexy.” He raises a hand to tug a loose strand of hair behind Yuri’s ear, touching the earlobe as tenderly as he did when he braided Yuri’s hair for the first time. “The taste of home,” he says. 

“Home.” What a beautiful word. Yuri can totally see Otabek in his flat, sitting on the couch with him while Ken cooks some delicious curry in the kitchen. The TV is on, but nobody’s watching; they’re too busy making out. Also, there is a cat. Yuri always wanted a cat and when Otabek moves in, they’ll get one of those cute white ones with long fur and a black face. 

One step at a time, Yuri reminds himself. First of all, he’s going to kiss Otabek once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you liked in the comments!
> 
> Also, this one has a companion fic written by the lovely Oceanwhirl! [Go check it out - it's her take on tattooed musician Otabek and OMG it's so good!!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17341541)


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